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Rage Virus
The Rage Virus, also known simply as the Infection, is a fictional disease in 28 Days Later, the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, the 28 Days Later comic series, and the 2007 film sequel, 28 Weeks Later. Origin Two Cambridge University scientists named Clive and Warren were trying to isolate the specific neurochemicals that cause anger and excessive aggression in humans in order to develop an inhibitor that regulates anger control issues. Warren decided that it was waste of time to experiment on volunteers from the school for the experiment because Cambridge students obviously didn't have uncontrollable rage. So he manages to get a contact at a police station to give him a violent criminal as a test subject. There was a problem with the delivery system: The injections were too diluted so Warren increased the dosage. However, the inhibitor still had no effect and when the test subject was about to attack Warren and Clive, Warren was forced to kill him. He then immediately decided they would experiment on chimpanzees, as Clive had been suggesting. As Warren and Clive were burying the criminal, Clive sneezed - giving Warren an idea. They had known that delivering widespread with a pill wouldn't do, neither would an aerosol. He decided that they should use a contagion as a delivery system. He located a certain genome in a strain of the Ebola virus. Using this new delivery system, the two exposed a chimpanzee to the inhibitor. However, the inhibitor mutated. In the chimpanzee, it had the opposite effect of what it was supposed to do. That is, it caused the chimpanzee to be full of uncontrollable rage. Warren had "created a rage virus." Clive was so disgusted by this that he quit. He later informed an animal rights eco-terrorist organization about the experimentation of animals and proceeded to shoot himself. A group of those eco-terrorist would later break into the lab and free one of the infected rage-filled chimpanzees. That chimpanzee attacked and infected one of the activists, who then infected a scientist and the other activists. From them, the Rage Virus spread throughout the island of Britain. Infection The Rage Virus is spread through the blood and saliva, and is highly contagious. The virus is typically transmitted through bites, but can also spread through saliva exchange. Other ways Rage can infect a host include an Infected spewing infected blood in a host's face - as shown in 28 Days Later and ''The Aftermath'' - or so much as one drop of infected blood getting in a host's eyes or mouth. Once a host is infected, they will have 10 - 20 seconds before they succumb to the Infection. An infected host may experience painful spasms in their extremities as the virus overwhelms them, and they will begin to bleed from their eyes and mouth. According to Danny Boyle, primates like humans and monkeys are the only animals that can carry the Rage Virus. It is unknown what would happen to a non-primate animal if the Infection hit it, but it would presumably either die or be unaffected by the virus. Characteristics The Rage Virus causes extreme aggression in a victim once they succumb to the disease. From that point on, the victim seeks out and viciously attacks any uninfected person to the extent of anything else, even self-preservation and self-nourishment. The disease is easily transmissible through any bodily fluid. Because of this extreme contagiousness and very short incubation time, a crowd of hundreds could be infected by one single individual in a matter of minutes. The virus gives those Infected a heightened mobility and endurance, thus enabling them to quickly rampage through miles and miles of territory and invade entire towns, as shown in 28 Weeks Later. The virus also seems to change the behaviour of the Infected, because before they were generally diurnal and slept at night; but in the space of time they are infected they become nocturnal and sleep in the day. According to 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, Rage is a recombinant strain of Ebola, though most of its symptoms are more like those of Rabies. One of the most prominent physical features of all the Infected is their eyes, which turn a brilliant red, possibly symbolizing their supreme anger and hatred. Although the symptoms of the Rage Virus are reportedly similar to rabies, according to the CDC rabies has an incubation period ranging from one week to over a year. A 2 to 3 month period is typical in the clinical setting and the disease is almost always fatal. As of now, there have only been 10 reported rabies survivors. Also unlike Rage, rabies is typically spread via exposure to saliva of an infected animal, and contact with blood or other bodily fluids will not spread the disease. Immunity 28 Weeks Later explores the discovery that there are certain characters that possess a natural immunity to the Rage Virus. In the film, Alice, who is discovered hiding in her family's old home, is a carrier of the disease but remains immune to its effects. Carriers such are still capable of spreading the infection, as their blood and saliva still carries the virus, but they will not display any symptoms of the virus themselves except for the left eye's sclera partially turning red. Nevertheless, Scarlett, District 1's chief medical officer, suggested that research be conducted on Alice's blood sample to study and ultimately locate a possible vaccine. Unfortunately, Alice inadvertently spreads the infection and is killed herself before any research can be conducted. In the film, attention is given to the fact that Alice and her son Andy possess heterochromic eye color; a seeming indicator of their immunity, though nothing is directly stated that this trait is linked to the immunity. However, according to Scarlett, the immunity was most likely caused by a genetic abnormality. Thus, if this is correct, it is possible that the cause of the immunity is the same cause for Alice and Andy's hetereochromia. When Andy is attacked by his infected father at the film's climax, he displays no symptoms of the Rage Virus (other than infected blood seeping into his eye), having inherited his mother's immunity. Despite this apparent immunity, he also became a carrier himself. Trivia *Danny Boyle has stated that in the films, primates are the only animals that can carry the virus. This fact is further supported by the fact that no infected animals other than chimps have been seen, and the fact that Rage is a recombinant strain of Ebola. *An alternative scene in 28 Days Later depicted that the only cure to the virus is a complete blood transfusion. Worsley House was originally supposed to be a lab with a scientist who created the radio broadcast. In this scene, Hannah's father was to be saved by having his infected blood replaced by the uninfected blood in Jim. The scene was cut, and cannot be viewed anywhere. *Strangely, most of the physical symptoms of the Rage Virus do not appear to be as severe in chimps as in humans; while infected humans are constantly bleeding from their eyes and mouth, infected chimps do not appear to bleed from their eyes, and apparently spew infectious blood much less than humans. Also, while infected chimps do possess the uncontrollable rage towards the uninfected found in humans, at least one chimp was shown to clap happily as another infected chimp attacked a human. This would suggest that infected chimps retain some form of sadistic thought processing. This was also shown in Don Harris, who, when infected, expressed pleasure in seeing the uninfected suffer. *The virus is shown to be able to infect and take over a host within seconds. However, in real life, it would be impossible for a virus to cause symptoms as virulent as the symptoms of Rage within such a short amount of time. External Links *List of Fictional Diseases - Wikipedia.org *Rage Virus - Zombiepedia References